


A Tomorrow Somewhere, With You

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Background Relationships, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 09:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2617709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Steve, through the years. If there really are an infinite number of timelines, Tony's glad he's in this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tomorrow Somewhere, With You

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative title: How Many Steve/Tony Tropes Can I Fit Into 4000 Words? An Analysis Of The Fundamental Rights Of Furniture.
> 
> This timeline diverges from the MCU, but not in a way that really matters.

The first time they meet, Steve Rogers’s eyes flash with a recognition and warmth that Tony doesn’t like the look of at all.

“I’m not him,” Tony says automatically. “He’s dead, I’m not, sorry for your loss or whatever.”

The warmth vanishes instantly. “I’m aware,” Captain America says slowly. “SHIELD has given me a lot of information on the modern world. You’re Howard’s son, Anthony.”

“Don’t call me that, nobody calls me that,” Tony replies, his voice filled with a curtness the defrosted hero doesn’t really deserve. But this blonde buddy of his dad has reminded him more of his father in two minutes than Tony wanted to be reminded of for the next ten years. He could be projecting; he’s seen the photos of Howard and Rogers together, but between the look of recognition and calling him ‘Anthony’ in that out-dated cadence, Tony has a half-mad idea that somehow his father has sent Steve back from the grave to remind Tony he’s still a disappointment.

“Mr Stark,” Steve overcorrects, a cold set to his jaw - and Tony thinks, _Well, at least you made sure Sir Icicle knows you’re an arrogant dick, just in case SHIELD didn’t put that in the file._

 

***

 

“Please tell me nobody kissed me,” Tony says, heart hammering in his chest and mind reeling desperately away from the abyss of death and space and nothingness. Steve ducks his head and smiles briefly, and says that they won. Tony should be thinking of a thousand different things right now, but for some reason, all he can think of is that smile, and how long it’s been since he last ate.

 

***

 

They don’t become ‘The Avengers’ immediately. That comes much later, after they’ve all gone off to be heroes on their own again. Tony suspects the others, like him, aren’t quite used to the ‘teamwork’ thing. Well, except the Captain; but he’s a leader, and he can’t lead a team that doesn’t really exist. They have their own teams anyway - Tony has Rhodey, and Pep for that matter, and Cap has his SHIELD cronies and the Falcon. Natasha and Clint were always more elite assassin than cape-wearing superhero. Thor’s not even on the same plane of existence as the rest of them most of the time. And Bruce - well, Bruce is around quite a bit, but he hasn’t Hulked out for more than a year. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, that the six of them once stood together against an alien army.

 

***

 

It’s a happy coincidence that the Tower is completed by the time Malibu goes up in flames. Tony has a couple of other bases, like the old mansion – but for some reason he moves into the Tower permanently anyway, or as permanent as he ever got. He builds new suits, of course, but he also finds himself awake in the early hours of the morning designing a network of communications transmitters, a bunch of trick arrows and extremely stretchable underwear.

Pepper and him are going great, Stark Industries is going great, and whenever things get too boring there’s always the Iron Man suit and a couple of amateur villains that could do with a good scaring.

  
***

 

The Tower has been complete for over eight months when the intended inhabitants finally begin to occupy it. Bruce is the first to move in, since he’s in Tony’s lab all the time these days and it makes sense for him to stop pretending there isn't a bed with his name on it. Natasha and Clint show up one morning drinking coffee like they had always been there. Thor descends from the heavens in full Asgardian armour onto the helicopter pad. Tony nearly drops the cup of coffee he’s holding when he sees the god patiently waving to him from the outside the penthouse window. Steve comes last, because Tony refuses to ask, and so does Steve.

Tony’s not a coward, but there’s something about Steve Rogers that makes him second-guess everything he does. They’re still not quite friends, not like the others. There’s too much history between them, in the literal sense. Tony’s pretty sure Steve hasn’t quite forgiven him for not being the Stark that Steve had known. Tony hasn’t forgiven himself for the confused emotions that war within him every time Steve enters a room. Jealousy, admiration, hatred, excitement. Captain America was the idol that Tony had loved as a child. Captain America was the icon that Howard’s son could never live up to. And between all that was the tentative acquaintanceship, the polite smiles and stiff exchanges that hid absolutely nothing about the fact they had once verbally ripped each others’ throats out.

 

***

 

The media’s been getting nasty recently, reminding them in blaring capital letters every time they accidentally destroy a building, or let a villain escape, or arrive just a minute too late. Steve is becoming increasingly withdrawn, and if Tony knows the traditional hero type Steve seems to be, it’s that he’s probably blaming himself for every life they can’t save.

“Listen, it’s not your fault,” Tony says, one particularly bad day, clasping his gauntleted hand around Steve’s shoulders. They had watched as some idiot blew himself up in the name of justice, killing the small crowd of hostages around him.

“We were supposed to save them,” Steve says dully. “I was supposed to save them. I’m the leader, aren’t I? Of course it’s my responsibility.”

Tony sees the rubble Steve is staring at, looks back at the blank emptiness in Steve’s eyes.

“Hey, do you want to get pizza?” he asks, because food is usually a good half-way solution to problems he doesn’t have an answer for.

 

***

 

“Tony, you really shouldn’t put your feet on the couch with those shoes,” Steve says sternly, eyeing Tony over a bowl of popcorn.

“Captain America, defender of the peace and the rights of furniture-kind,” Tony parrots immediately in an obnoxious newsboy voice. “My couch, my house, my rules, Cap. Come on, how much property damage did you cause with Magneto last week?”

“That – that is completely – not the point,” Steve fumes. “Just because you can fix everything with money doesn’t mean you should.”

“Here we go,” Clint says to Natasha, rolling his eyes and salvaging the popcorn from Steve as he and Tony start arguing heatedly.

 

***

 

The Avengers Tower seems to gain new occupants every time the seasons change. Not everyone is around all the time - Bruce has taken to wandering again, and Thor keeps flying back to Asgard, or Jane. Clint stays around, for the most part, but Natasha will drop off the map without explanation for months at a time. Steve and Tony seem to be the only ones from the original six truly living there permanently, and some of the younger members of the team refer to them affectionately as ‘Mom and Dad’ - particularly when they get into arguments. Tony and Steve unify then, if only in the act of resolutely ignoring them.

Somewhere along the line, they become best friends. Tony isn’t sure how it happens, only that he’s glad it did.

 

***

 

It’s four in the morning, and Tony finds Steve staring blankly into space over the coffee machine.

“You like your coffee frozen, Capsicle?” Tony chuckles, and Steve looks up with something like fear, then surprise, before he masks it quickly.

“Sorry, got to reminiscing,” Steve says quietly. He pours the contents of his cup into the sink, and Tony has an uncharacteristic stroke of intuition, like his neurons finally fired in the right sequence and worked it out.

“Want to talk about it?” Tony offers quietly. Steve looks at him strangely, and Tony continues, “I mean, if you want. I’m in the workshop, always open, any time.”

He heads for the elevator before he can make any more embarrassing, unwanted offers.

 

***

 

Steve comes down to the workshop the next night. He brings his sketchpad, and he and Tony trade barbs like it’s breakfast and the others are standing around keeping score. 

Then Steve tells Tony about the past, and the world he lost, and the ice. And Tony listens.

 

***

 

Pepper breaks up with him.

It’s not completely unexpected, but it still hurts. It hurts less, though, than Tony thinks it might do if he didn’t have the Avengers. He throws himself into battles and jokes and team movie nights. If he drinks more than he strictly should in his workshop late at night, well, nobody needs to know. He has violent, loveless sex with a young, blonde up-and-coming pop artist, and feels disgusted with himself the next morning when he wakes up and discovers the woman next to him isn’t Pepper.

Tony wants to ring Pepper and tell her that he doesn’t think he can love anyone else.

Tony doesn’t ring Pepper, though, because she deserves better.

 

***

 

Pepper finds better, it turns out, in the form of Happy. Tony’s weirdly grateful for that - Happy is someone he can trust, and he isn’t bitter at all, even at their wedding. He’s on his eighth glass of scotch when a warm arm wraps around his shoulder and steers him outside to the garden.

“Weddings are happy, you know, I’m so happy,” Tony says. “Because I’m not - I’m not a marrying guy, and Pep deserves the best, and Happy’s the best, and he makes Pep _happy_ , and that’s an old joke - but honestly who names their kid _Happy_? _”_

It’s the middle of spring, and there are birds singing in the trees. The sun is shining gently, and the smell of flowers blooming everywhere threatens to choke him. Tony hides his face in Steve’s chest and shakes silently. Steve says nothing, but pulls Tony close and massages his fingers on Tony’s back and scalp until Tony can breathe again.

 

***

 

They’re fighting Doombots one afternoon in late November when Tony looks around and feels an overwhelming sense of serenity descend upon him. It’s a peaceful feeling totally at odds with the way he's currently blasting evil robots with repulsor beams. But the voices of his team are blaring through the comms, and Spider-Man is yodelling wildly as he careers across buildings overhead, and Tony thinks that he can’t imagine going back to living without the Avengers.

It’s not an easy realisation, one that jars right against every gear in him. He built himself from the ground up to run without the need of friends or family - _Tony Stark, doesn’t play well with others._ His blueprints said he worked just fine on coffee and machine oil, that even when every person disappeared he’d still have himself. His parents died, Stane betrayed him, Pepper married someone else. But the Avengers haven’t left him, not yet.

“Iron Man, behind you!” Carol yells, and Tony saves the sentiment for a more practical time.

 

***

 

New Years Eve is surprisingly festive that year, with nearly every Avenger there for what Tony has promised will be ‘The party of the year. Years. Both of them.’

Tony has converted most of the top floor to a recreational deck for the event, and superheroes in a weird motley of bright costumes and normal civilian clothes mill about drinking imported Asgardian ale and causing havoc whenever someone decides to show off a superpower-related party trick. 

“So you see, the question is whether the original timeline continues onwards,” Reed Richards is explaining somewhere. “But I’m working on a way to find out. There _could_ be an infinite number, or there could be one for every instance of someone going back in time and changing the course of history.”

“An infinite number?” Tony hears Steve ask.

“Contingent on every choice made, every chance flip of the coin, perhaps even every atomic mistake,” Richards says, a bit breathless with excitement. 

“So, there could be universes where - where I didn’t go down in the ice,” Steve says quietly. Tony’s heart seems to slow in his chest, and the other conversations around him blur out to white noise. He pretends to pour himself a drink at the bar, letting the amber liquid flow as slowly as possible.

“And universes where you never get the serum,” Richards continues, oblivious. “And if we could see the alternatives - imagine, seeing the life you never got to lead, or the wife and children you never had, all because of a chance decision!”

“Cap, hey, do you want a drink?” Tony says suddenly, pushing his way into the little circle that’s formed around Richards.

“You’ve known me for how long, now?” Steve asks rhetorically, raising an eyebrow.

“You still drink sometimes just to pretend, though, I’ve seen it,” Tony declares. “Come on, I’ll make you something nice. Let it not be said that Tony Stark doesn’t know how to mix a drink.” He drags Steve away, outside onto the balcony. Jessica Drew is making out with Clint, which, okay, sure. Tony rolls his eyes and growls, “JARVIS, boots please!”

Steve steps back a little, amused, as Tony’s boots come up out of the floor a few metres away. Tony steps into them and then holds out an arm to Steve. Steve, to his credit, wraps his body around Tony without question, an instinct born of Tony having carried Steve into battle once too often. It’s different this time, though; there isn’t a metal suit between them, and Steve has to grip harder onto Tony’s jacket than Tony thinks is strictly good for the Armani.

“We’re not going far, I won’t drop you,” Tony murmurs, oddly discomforted.

“You never do,” Steve says, against his neck. Tony blinks at that, and launches into the sky.

They land almost as soon as they take off, on a sheltered platform about a hundred feet from the balcony. Frankly Tony’s surprised that nobody else has managed to climb, fly or web their way up here, but he’s grateful for it.

“You know, I kind of get why Clint likes high places now,” Steve observes, watching Spider-Woman and Hawkeye below. “There’s something about being able to see people, and them not able to see you.”

“I knew I should have given you the Invisibility Cloak for Christmas,” Tony says in mock annoyance.

Steve grins, and Tony feels heat suffuse him despite the freezing cold. “Why did you bring me here, Tony?” Steve asks, and Tony thinks, madly, that he should be inside, warm and drunk, kissing someone on New Year’s Eve.

“That thing with Richards. The multiverse - infinite timelines - whatever. I just -” Tony breaks off, uncertain how to phrase the feeling of panic building in his chest. What is he afraid of? That Cap will take one look at the other universes, and step through to them like Alice through the looking glass?

 _Yes,_ he thinks. He’s scared. He’s terrified that Cap will leave him, because without Cap - without Steve –

“Tony,” Steve says, with unusual gentleness. “I’m glad I came here. I wasn’t at first, you know. I hated it - I hated everything, I hated _you,_ even, because everything was nothing like what I remembered. It was like landing on an alien planet, where people didn’t even have the time to see you - to see you couldn’t breathe the same air as them.” 

Tony doesn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ doesn’t cover it - he was one of the ones, he knew, who had probably made it worst for Steve in the first few months. Always fighting if they were around each other, a hostile reminder of the past. ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t even come close to how he feels, knowing Steve was in pain - that he caused Steve pain.

“But, you know,” Steve says gazing out to the city. “If I hadn’t come here, I wouldn’t have been a part of the Avengers. I wouldn’t have made all the friends I have. I wouldn’t have met you,” Steve says, smiling, and Tony feels a weight lift from his heart.

“You might have met mini-me,” Tony says practically, throwing up a wall of words while he analyses the new tangle of emotions flowing through him. “You know, if you had stayed in the past. You might have been there when I was born.”

“Not the same,” Steve says, grinning, and Tony thinks, _thank god,_ and then, stupidly, catches Steve’s hand in his own.

“Thank you,” he says, meaning it, and they watch fireworks blossom in the sky as the New Year is brought in. Tony doesn’t let go of Steve’s hand, and if he looks at the profile of Steve’s face in the colourful lightshow more than he looks at the lightshow itself, well. Nobody else is here to notice.

 

***

 

It’s too easy to fall in love with Captain America.

He’s everyone’s ideal - handsome, pure, everything good and noble about the world. But the problem is that Tony isn’t just in love with Captain America - he’s in love with Cap, who shoves him against walls and yells at him for disobeying orders, and fights back to back with him against monsters and aliens and giant hamsters. He’s in love with Steve, who sketches quietly in a corner of Tony’s workshop, and hums tunes to songs the rest of the world has forgotten. He’s in love with Steve’s blue eyes that wrinkle at the edges when he’s smiling, and the quirk of his mouth that he tries to hide when Tony makes a joke. He’s in love with Steve’s back, and his hands, and the golden hair that hides under his cowl. He’s in love with the smell of Steve when they spar, and with the amused glint in his eye that makes Tony want to close the distance between them, and kiss the salty sweat from his lips.

So, that’s a problem.

But Tony’s always been quite good at repressing.

 

***

 

Tony dates a couple of girls, and so does Steve. Steve gets into a serious relationship with Sharon Carter for about a year, really, although they seem always be on and off again until one day the switch doesn’t flick back to on.

They fight, and joke, and spar, and lead their team. Steve becomes the partner Tony’s never had, in a different way to Rhodey or Pepper or anyone else. On his more whimsical days, Tony feels as though there was a perfectly Steve-shaped hole in his life that he didn’t realise was there until it was filled. And Tony would never risk losing their friendship, not over anything. Especially not over feelings that aren’t reciprocated. Besides, he’s too proud to validate five years of ribbing from Spider-Man over the whole ‘Mom and Dad’ thing.

 

***

 

Natasha corners him in the kitchen one day, during a team movie night.

“If you never say anything, you might regret it,” she says, cryptically. Tony has to run that through his head twice before he realises what she’s referring to.

“Am I that obvious?” he groans. Natasha smiles her slightly-evil smile.

“Not to Steve. But to someone like me – well, let’s just say you look like you’re a poor, starving man and Steve is the baked bread you can’t possibly afford.”

Tony laughs. “Tony Stark, beggar,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t just want to sleep with him, you know.”

Natasha’s smile grows sadder. “Oh, I know. I would have ripped your balls out years ago if that were the case.”

Tony watches her slink away with her usual deadly grace, and has a renewed respect for Bucky Barnes. The man that trusted her with the more delicate parts of his anatomy was brave indeed.

 

***

 

They are on the steps of the New York City Public Library, and someone fires a gun.

Tony doesn’t remember jumping in front of Steve. He only remembers wondering how in the world a gunman had gotten past his weapons detection radar.

Someone screams his name - no, a hundred people call his name. His last name. _Stark!_ But Steve - Steve is right next to him, calling him Tony, over and over, and Tony thinks only, _You were right, Natasha._

 

***

 

He wakes up, and the ceiling is white.

 _I hate hospitals,_ he thinks. Someone is holding his hand, but he can’t seem to find the energy to turn his head, or even squeeze it.

 _It’s a nice hand,_ he thinks, and falls asleep again.

 

***

 

He wakes up again, and this time he is alone. Someone is arguing close by though - possibly in the next room. Something about him, and how he wasn’t getting any better even though it had been a week, and how they’d threaten to move him to better facilities because it was Stark Industries who had legal rights to his care and not the government.

“Pep?” Tony croaks, and tries again. “Pepper?”

The voices outside fall silent.

Tony thinks if the frosted glass wasn’t an automatic sliding door, Pepper would probably have kicked it down off its hinges. “How _dare_ you,” she hisses, and Tony gives her the greatest shit-eating grin of his life.

 

***

 

The rest of the team arrive soon after that, most of them blatantly ignoring the medical staff’s blatant requests for Tony’s peace and rest. Tony thinks, drily, that nobody is paid enough to stand up to an Asgardian god of thunder who doesn’t agree with your point of view.

Steve shuffles in at some point, looking like a downtrodden puppy. He stays at the back of the room while the others exchange jokes, give Tony ridiculous cards and oversized alien flowers, and eventually leave. At last, when the two of them remain, he comes forward slowly and sits in the chair by Tony’s bedside and placing his hand on the bed awkwardly, before retracting it into a fist.

 _It was your hand,_ Tony thinks. Of course. Steve probably didn’t leave his bedside in the first couple of days - he’d probably feel personally responsible for something like this, making sure Tony hadn’t died to save him.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony says, softly.

“Hey, Shellhead,” Steve replies, looking at him with something new in his eyes. Tony really hopes it isn’t tears, because - hey, no, totally not necessary.

“You nearly died,” Steve goes on, and Tony thinks, _What the hell,_ and reaches out for Steve’s hand. Steve isn’t crying, but his hand grips Tony like he might if it were the only thing saving Tony from falling into a precipice. 

“But I didn’t, here I am, and here you are too,” Tony says, rubbing his thumb over the back of Steve’s. “And hey, don’t be mad, I didn’t even disobey your orders this time!”

Steve gives a choked laugh, and raises Tony’s hand to his forehead. “I was so scared of losing you,” he says softly, “What would I do? What if you had died, Tony? How could I-”

“You would lead the Avengers, life would go on,” Tony says firmly. “I might even come back in a couple of years as a clone or a crazed psycho-solider with a metal arm, so you know, it wouldn’t be too bad-” 

Steve gets up off the chair, and kisses him. The angle is all wrong, and Tony’s mouth is dry, and Steve’s hand is sweaty and trembling against Tony’s cheek. Tony’s brain short-circuits, and then rewires itself with surprising speed, and he’s kissing Steve back for all he’s worth.

They break off, panting, and Steve says, “You should have kissed me years ago,” and Tony, Tony doesn’t know what to do with that except to pull him in again. 

“Then we better start making up for it,” he says, face inches from Steve’s own. Steve laughs, bright and radiant, and kisses him on the forehead, on the nose, and cheek, and finally once more on his lips.

 

***

 

Years pass, and the world changes. They gain new friends, and lose some, and the Avengers dissolve and form again twice before the decade is out.

Later, much later, Tony and Steve sit on the top of the newly rebuilt Avengers Tower and wait for the New Years’ fireworks, hands clasped together and leaning into each other against the cold.

“You know,” Steve says, staring out into the distance with a fond smile. “I remember once Reed Richards talking about alternate timelines. About how our choices could change different realities, create different futures.”

“And?” Tony says softly, breathing in the scent of his hair.

“I’d choose the Avengers. I’d choose this world, every time,” Steve says, and Tony kisses him as fireworks explode somewhere in the sky.


End file.
